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Franchise reboots are all the rage these days in Hollywood, and the trend is starting to creep into the games industry as well. The Guardian's games blog is running a story discussing a few examples and pondering likely candidates for future reboots. Quoting:
"If anything, the concept of the reboot makes more sense in the videogame sector than it does in movies. For a start, games are complex entities, with each new iteration in a familiar series adding many, many hours of fresh narrative content. Entering, say, the Zelda, Resident Evil, Half-Life, Dragon Quest or Metal Gear worlds at this stage must be massively intimidating — even if the developers go to great lengths to make each entry work as a singular, self-contained entity within the canon. Also, videogames are going through a paradigm shift in terms of popular appeal at the moment. The faithful audience of young males has been joined by new demographics brought in by the Wii, PC casual games, and now the iPhone. Many of these people may be vaguely aware of long-running game brands, but won't have a clue about the key characters, sign post events and basic gameplay mechanisms."
So, which series (or individual title) would you like to see rebooted?

They sit around all day text messaging each other. I think text adventures have a shot at a comeback. Not in the exact same form; I think a leap forward in parser intelligence will probably be required. It needs to be a little more forgiving. The text format itself is not a deal-breaker, though.

I'm not sure if it really counts as a reboot since there's only been one console version so far, but i'd really like to see Kid Icarus! Rumors about it keep popping up from time to time along with vague statements by Nintendo, so hopefully it will actually get done at some point!

Sometimes I dream I live in a world where Space Quest 7 was never cancelled.
I'm hoping the new Monkey Island titles and the relaunch of the original games over XBox Live will reinvigorate the adventure game genre. Unfortunately most people who've bought The Secret of Monkey Island: SE are people who like me, played them many, many years ago, and wanted to relieve them one more time.

I don't think we need a reboot of the Space Quest franchise as much as we just need another Space Quest game.

Sierra had one in the works (as in at least parts of the game were playable) about 5-6 years ago, but it was canceled. I don't think they ever disclosed publicly that they were working on it, but I know someone who was on the dev team. It sounded like they were staying pretty faithful to the spirit of the originals, although that may have been their downfall - sci-fi comedy is sort of a niche market, and Space/King's Quest-style old-school adventure games definitely are. Sierra is (or was at the time at least) basically the most cancel-happy publisher of all time, so I'm sure it didn't take much for them to get cold feet.

"The game starts with the user assuming the role of a lowly Ensign Seventh Class on the S.P.S. Feinstein, a starship of the Stellar Patrol. Overbearing superior Ensign First Class Blather assigns the player to mop decks, not exactly the glorious adventures promised by the recruiters on Gallium. But a sudden series of explosions aboard the ship sends the player scrambling for an escape pod, which eventually crash-lands on a

Descent was good but Descent: Freespace and Freespace 2 were great too. In particular the epic storyline, intrigue, unpredictability, immersion and voice acting, I feel, is unrivaled even compared to todays games. The missions would start off with really detailed briefings planning how everything should work, making the player think that everything will go according to the briefing, then nothing goes as planned, just like in real life. There were missions where you don't even win or aren't expected to win, whereas nowadays your games are like this "heres the missions go do it, oh you succeeded horay!".

As one of the Kahn developers (another one of them is sitting in the office next to mine), and one of the programmers of Descent 3 I have to respond.

First off, the Kahn/Kali days were loads of fun, playing Descent 1 over the internet back in 1996 is a great memory I still have.

IMO, the problems with D3 was that we never got the scale right for flying. D1/D2 had a feeling of speed because the tunnels were smaller and simpler. In D3 the designers tried to achieve a sense of massive complexes, which meant larger rooms and tunnels plus outdoor terrain. The problem there was the sense of flying fast was lost. I think this is the thing that disappointed most Descent fans. But I don't think that is what kept it from being a commercial success. I think the problem there was 1) feature creep made the development of D3 cost too much, 2) As you mentioned, the game was released in an era that had loads of hardware video card driver issues, which lead to tons of returns, and IMO the biggest issue: 3) Descent fatigue (lots of people bought D1/D2 because it was a unique idea, but by D3 they had already been there and done that).

Contrary to what you say though, D3 wasn't primarily developed for Glide. It was originally developed for Glide, but that's because at the time development started that was the only real option. A lot of effort was put into OpenGL, but there were constant driver issues causing us grief.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean about complaining about the use of TCP/IP for the online game play. I wrote the network layer for D3 (the same layer is used for other games including Freespace II if I remember correctly), and it used only UDP/IP for in game play. I think a lot of the complaints about laggy play were unfair given the networks people were playing over (no fast action game works well when pings get to 700ms or more).

I'd love to be involved with Descent again, but I really doubt it will happen.

BTW, my son was born right after D3 was released, and he really likes to play it now, which is pretty cool.

I think a lot of the complaints about laggy play were unfair given the networks people were playing over (no fast action game works well when pings get to 700ms or more).

Tribes did ok. It was the exception, not the rule though-- a lot of games in that era (like MechWarrior III) were simply terrible.

BTW, do you have any insight on why network code seems to be one of those things that's never a "solved problem?" I mean, I tried America's Army 3 the other day, and it was as bad as MechWarrior III... it was cra

IMO, a large part of the problem is how closely the network code has to be coupled with the rest of the game. All game state data has to be transmitted, as well as the position, orientation, velocity, etc. Add in scripted events, and there's no simple general purpose solution to reusing the network logic.

Also, the internet is so unpredictable and varying in capabilities it is really hard to tune for bandwidth, loss, and latency. I know a lot of Descent 3 players were telling the game they had T1 speeds when they really were on dialup. That caused lots of dropped packets, terrible bouts of delayed packets (which looks like horrible lag), etc. All because they tried to send too many packets in too short of a time, thinking "faster is better" would give them a better experience.

This game NEEDS to be remade -- the story, characters, and gameplay mechanics are just about the best ever, but are trapped in an awful game engine with atrocious AI. Even with the major flaws, I still play through it about once a year. I would LOVE to see it remade with a modern engine, with all the rough edges smoothed out (and without the dumbed down, console-friendly interface of the PoS sequel!), and the story line and environments fleshed out a little bit further. That would be beyond an epic win.

I think a "reboot" implies something a little different than a remake. "Reboot" means you're going back to the beginning, starting over again, and throwing away everything since. Kind of like the recent Star Trek movie was presented as a "reboot" of the franchise.

Amen! The game was a tour de force, -despite- its short comings. How often can you say about the game "Well, it was terrible but it rocked my world." That was what Deus Ex was to me, and I played it years after it was released when it looked pretty old and the graphics were stale. It was a compelling, thoughtful, atmospheric and well-written piece of art. It was everything its sequel was not.

Just played it again, and now that you mentioned it, the graphics do look dated. But at the time, I was too into the game to notice. And I would get the rewrite, or reboot.

Maybe my standards are lower, but I played it recently and the graphics were perfectly acceptable, provided you didn't get 6" from an object so you notice the texture flaws. But why the hell would you be doing that anyway?

But there's more to graphics than texture detail anyway. The *original* Deus Ex did a very good job with color ba

There's the High Definition Texture Pack [offtopicproductions.com] fan project, which is pretty damn cool looking. There's only so much you can do with the original Unreal Engine, but it looks pretty good.

There is also The Namless Mod (TNM) [thenamelessmod.com], a massive TC for Deus Ex 1 that was only finished this year (I think). TNM is a lot of fun, and is worthwhile reviving your Deus Ex install for.

I would reboot Final Fantasy and make many of the characters less cheesy. I would also make the subject matter a bit darker and the interactions more free form. I think it would also be nice to have a non-turn-based combat option.

I would reboot Final Fantasy and make many of the characters less cheesy.

If you think the characters are cheesy, that's one thing, but why do you think this needs a "reboot"? What does "reboot" even mean here, given that almost every game has nothing to do with any of the other games in the series?

I would also make the subject matter a bit darker

Which FF game are you talking about? A number of the FF games have had fairly dark plots underneath their superficially colorful graphics; FF6, Tactics, 10, and 12 all come to mind immediately.

the interactions more free form

So... you want the series to basically stop being like a Japanese RPG and be more like a Western RPG?

I think it would also be nice to have a non-turn-based combat option.

FF 4 through 9, 11, and 12 all fit that bill. If you didn't mean "turn-based" but actually meant, "I want a battle system where characters don't line up in rows and swing at each other", there's still 11 and 12.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're basing your opinion of the entire series off of just one or two of the games.

Aside from FFX-2, each Final Fantasy game has been more or less independent of its predecessors, so essentially the series gets a small reboot with every game. And as for the non-turn-based combat option, FF12 came close -- each character still takes their turns, but it's less "your guys go, then the enemies go" and more of a "do your stuff, then wait for a cooldown" system.

I agree that I'd like to see a darker Final Fantasy -- while most of the FF games deal with the end of the world as a consequence for

There are about a hojillion XCOM reboots out there: some open sourced, some commercial. A common phrase is "spiritual successor." Honestly, you can't swing a dead cat on a google search [google.com] without finding one.

UFO Aftermath was the start of a great series with both the strategic and tactical options, all set in a post-apocalyptic world. UFO Extraterrestrials is another. Then there's UFO2000, UFO:AI... different games focus on different aspects of the game type.

XCOM is next in my line of reviews, so I've been gathering a ton of this information together lately.:)

Star Control II was remade into Ur Quan Masters... not a reboot with new graphics, but there is updated music and options to make it playable on any current system. I'd love a new sequel though. Go to Toys for Bob's sourceforge page [sc2.sourceforgenet] and sign their petition for commercial development if you're moved to do so.

The original Wing Commander games were great. For some reason the gaming industry has moved away from space fighter simulators. Which is disappointing, that was an early genre that was a lot of fun.

I particularly have fond memories of Wing Commander Armada, which combined in strategy elements. You had to explore planets, mine resources and build factories and ships, and you had to do it carefully. When your fleet met the enemies, it switched to the traditional fighter simulator. Even then though, you had a fleet of ships with goals, and you could switch control between them.

I'd love to see Wing Commander, or some other space fighter, done with today's technology.

Yep, Wing Commander is a game series that could really use a good reboot. Start with the same premise with the same characters, and see where it can take you. I liked 1/2 and loved 3/4, I wonder what modern graphics technology could do with this series. And as others mentioned, space sim games are really lacking nowadays. The last good one I played was Freespace 2.

I just finished buying all the original Lucasarts adventure games that were released on steam (Dig, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones) as well as the new Monkey Island game (+episodes). My fiancee had me pick up the Wallace and Gromit games.

What I'm saying is, I'm still an adventure game junkie, and, if I have anything to say about it, any kids I have will be too. We need more of them.

This is obvious. Every 3d Sonic has sucked starting with Sonic Adventure (which sucked just a little) and has gone downhill since. Dump all the stupid characters and give it a 2d perspective again. Sonic Rush comes close, it would be nice to see a game of that quality hit a major console.

Don't reboot it, just update the graphics and the sound and keep Syndicate otherwise the same. Great game. Similarly, the point-and-click Adventure adaptation of I Have No Mouth Yet I Must Scream would be just as great today with some updated graphics and better voice actors (keeping Harlan Ellison's original VO).

- Crazy Taxi (how about a multiplayer version, everyone competing for fares?)- Jet Set Radio (that funky Tokyo-esque rollerblading game with its awesome soundtrack never gets old)- Shenmue (hell, forget the reboot, I just want to see the damn storyline finished!)- Sonic (on second thought, no, forget Sonic)

Yes. A million times yes. In a perfect world, it would be 64 vs. 64 players online (minimum), with the ability to have a few people on the capital ships (a la Battlefield 1942). I would imagine a leveling system sort of like COD4, allowing you to have access to perks and better ships the more xp you get.
No ground combat, though. I can't get behind the Battlefront series because it doesn't do vehicles or ground combat well, it does both halfway, and isn't very enjoyable because of this.

Balance would probably be an issue, with TIEs being mostly paper dragons compared to XWing. There's a reason standard imperial tactics require you to outnumber the rebels 3:1 before engaging...

One step towards resolving this is spawn timing, Imperial forces with an 0-3 second spawn delay, rebel forces with a 8-12 second spawn delay. There are other ways to resolve this, it just requires game designers to be creative. (creative, whuts that?)

Come on lucasarts - let's reboot the xwing series - xwing, tie fighter, etc..make it have the same controls like before, joystick support, keep the simulation aspects, don't dumb it downor make it all consolitis.. I want to be able to manage my weapons shields and engines..

Guess what, the number 1 candidate I'd have named is getting a reboot. Mechwarrior. My head tells me that disappointment is still the likely outcome, but my hearts looks at the material they've put out so far and jumps for joy.

Other good candidates?

Wing Commander - it was the series that defined "cutting edge" gaming for a generation. I'd love to see this done properly on modern technology - including the heavy story emphasis and cheesy cutscenes.

Eye of the Beholder - this would need to be done properly. RPGs these days tend towards big open worlds, which can be great. But I'd love to see a decent, non-Diablo-style RPG which takes a classic, claustrophobic dungeon setting (running on a decent, modern engine) and places the emphasis firmly on survival and puzzle solving, rather than making friends and becoming the Grand Trademaster Caravanlord of Little Wizzlington.

Star Control - Pretend the third game never happened, just give us either a decent sequel or a franchise reboot in the style of the second game.

And finally (and this is what gets me flamed)... Half-Life. I didn't like Half-Life 2. I've replayed it a couple of times trying to "get" it and I still don't like it. The changes with the game-world of the first game are too jarring and badly explained. The idea of the mute protagonist just Does Not Work in the context of a more open-world game like Half-Life 2. It certainly doesn't work when you try to make said protagonist out to be some kind of a Messiah figure. Pretend HL2 never happened and go back to the feel of the original.

Half Life 2 is "open world?" I love the game, but it's totally linear. There's a series of arenas connected by narrow passages. Episode 2 had slightly more space, what with the driving sequence at the end, but even that was still an arena. And Gordon was mute all through the first game, so I don't understand why you feel it "works" in that one and not in the sequels.

What I'd really like to see, is a "re-boot" -- or updated port, of a whole generation of games onto mobile devices

Baldur's Gate (As in the PC versions, not the X-Box stuff...) -- BG2 still rules as the best RPG ever made.Wing Commander -- Why are there no good space flight / space operas anymore anyway?M.U.L.E. -- for those who know...X-COM -- This game could be done on an iPhone oh so well...

Both are these series are long over due for new entries with updated tech driving them. A reboot would be good. In the case of the Star Wars titles new entires that include the ships from the Prequel Trilogy would allow for adding fresh content. Perhaps even serving to provide a story arc. Fresh new Pilot in the days of the republic to grizzled Vet in the days the rebellion.

OK, I know this would be the best selling game in the history of games... but I've been pining for an updated Sim Earth lately. There is so much going on with climate science I think it would be really interesting.

There hasn't been a good single player fantasy RPG game released in quite a while.

And I grew up on Wing Commander. From pixelated sprites to 3-D models. Nothing like nursing your ship through that last waypoint with one working mass driver hoping you don't meet any more nasties. Space sims seem to have dropped of the edge of the planet in recent years (EVE Online excepted). It would be nice to see one again so I can blow the dust off of my joystick.

I still religiously play Commander Keen every year or so. Even today, bouncing mushroom, slugs, and kid heroes in football helmets don't get old. I would love to see a remake, as long as it stays true to the original series.

I think Square-Enix needs to collaborate with Nintendo to make another Super Mario RPG. Few RPGs have the level of actual -fun- that Super Mario RPG had. Paper Mario and Mario and Luigi are pathetic imitations when it comes to Super Mario RPG. And above all the game seemed "fresh", having a lot of the same Nintendo characters but added a lot of new ones with impressive depth. Mix that with graphics that still look great today and it is a game just dying to be re-made as a DS or Wii game.

Sims were a victim of the success of gaming as a whole. Why devote a massive game budget (like Falcon 4.0) to target a tiny segment of the customer base when you can just go after the lowest common denominator with something like Ace Combat 71?

not that it was really a series, but put in a better map, better hunting, different hazards, more types of supplies, open-ended route selection like gps navigation or something, roving bands of indians to deal with, much much more!!

i still have the old version on a flash drive with an old mac emulator and play it every now and then, so much fun hunting, i always max out the number of bullets i can take with me!

System Shock was too far ahead of it's time. The interface was inventive, but not in a good way. The creatures were scary, but had no AI to speak of. The graphics were cutting edge...in the 90's. And they game play has inspired the industry in so many ways, what would happen if the industry returned that inspiration?

The originals - Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness. Wrap them in one long game. Tie them together a little more neatly. Remove the reliance on journals. (Although I will admit the translation wheel and journal were awesome in the day, now they only serve as a distraction -- dig through the box, find the manual, read the entry - and that's only if I've managed to forget what the entry was, which isn't likely.)

Remaking the games and giving PoR and CotAB the Fix command in camp would be nice. Updating the graphics would be nice. But the game play - what I refer to as fantasy based squad level combat, not role playing - could be hugely improved. You could add role playing elements by expanding the options in the games for solving the puzzles. Make the players think more in quite a few of the situations they found themselves in.

Though, SotSB could probably be left out to die. I don't have many fond memories of it. And this probably doesn't qualify as a reboot so much as a remake. And WotC, or whoever holds the AD&D license now, would insist on using 4e rules which would change the flavor of the game entirely...

Dungeon Keeper would be a fantastic game to see re-imagined. Eye of the Beholder. I'd enjoy seeing what some of the darker personalities of the world could do with the Warcraft lore, given the chance. Space simulations need to come back -- picked up FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 at Good Old Games (http://www.gog.com [gog.com]) and loved 'em; they're made even better with the FreeSpace Source Code Project [indiegames.us] created by the source code release by Volition. (Hm, have they already been rebooted, or just remade? There are several new campaigns...)

Wing Commander would be awesome to see revived. Ultima would be a fantastic series to see reimagined, especially the first three (which I never liked all that much due to the space portions). RIP Origin.:|

What Ubisoft did to Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon after they bought the Tom Clancy franchises is a travesty. They're in desparate need of a reboot back to their realistic, tactical roots. Recent games in both series have turned into poor imitations of action movies. The latest R6 game even had a climactic boss battle where you, on foot, have to take down an attack helicopter while dodging left and right on a tennis court to avoid its missiles.

I would love to see a modern-engined Carmageddon reboot. Sure, the 3rd one(TDR) was horrible, focusing on the missions. The reason for that is that even the developers realized there wasn't much to this game. The enemy cars often got damaged and just randomly veered around. There was no sense of urgency except to kill peds to keep your timer from running out. Ergo, missions were put in(some I could not solve even with cheats).

It was just fun to drive around & do stunts, mixed in with car combat & running peds down. Veered into sandbox-style games. It was a zen game. Let's see this redone with a modern game engine, perhaps with destructible environments and such.

Probably nobody else is going to agree with me, but I had to mix it up a bit.

I agree...DNF became an industry joke to the point that it totally overshadowed the game itself, along with DN3D. The fact is, the game was a lot of *fun* to play. Quake was the "better" game in having a real 3D environment, but it wasn't a lot of fun; level after level of stone walls and wooden beams.

It's too bad that any version is unlikely to see the light of day because of intellectual property laws and all that; theoretically all you'd need to do is take the Quake 3 engine and start building some level

Speaks for itself... it had brilliant game play, a very twisty-turny plot with magic and undead galore, mixing medieval with technology with magic - the story could go pretty much wherever the story-teller wanted it to.

Most of the games that have been mentioned are or were gems. Maybe of their time, but they were really good. They don't need a reboot. They need a makeover. The formula was right and the game in a new dress would rock again.

I think what we should be looking for is games that had a great idea but went off in the wrong direction. Where the original idea was novel, stunning, the foundation of a truely great game, but the game itself was lacking in some way. Or games where the first installment was awesome but they botched it with the sequels.

Back in the 80's my parents bought me the game for my 8086 5mhz 512k CGA computer. It was a neat game. The mechanics of it were very much like scumm. The music was catchy (written by DEVO) even on PC speaker. It wasn't until years later that I read the book. After reading it, I definitely wanted an updated version of the game.

No One Lives Forever (NOLF) 1 and 2 were the games that first made my wife (I know, I know, insert standart/. joke about the unlikliness of a 'wife' existing) enjoy PC gaming. Every now and then we'll still yell "AAABBBIIIGAAAAAIIIILLLLL" at each other and smile. Good campy humor combined with good stories in a FPS that works for both men and women? NOLF 3? Yes please!

As I used to tell snarky Halo fanbois, "I liked Halo better when it was called Marathon". It always seemed to go over their heads tho.

There were definitely similarities. Maybe more than I ever saw, since I only played the first Halo game. I could easily imagine both Halo and Marathon taking place in the same universe.

A couple things I liked in Marathon, but missed in Halo:

Marathon had a real sense of the unknown. You didn't know who the enemy was. You didn't know why they were attacking. You didn't know what they were capable of. The first level where you encounter a hunter was creepy as hell. You kept reading about them in the ter

I wouldn't mind a refresh of the original Marathon. Upgrade the engine and graphics but keep the game play and sounds, other than converting to true surround sound. Was totally creepy playing that at 3am, even with just a stereo setup.

Then vsit Marathon Open Source [bungie.org] to download an updated version of the Marathon engine, all three original games in formats compatible with the updated engine (free and legal), and a variety of graphical enhancements (high-res walls, weapons, basically everything but the monsters) created by the fans over the years.

Also, while you're at it download my own 52-level unofficial sequel to the Marathon Trilogy, complete with all-new hi-res goodness just like the originals now have: Eternal [bungie.org]. Also highly recommended